


Too Many Regrets To Count

by JackH777



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Haunting, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Regret, Vanya Hargreeves Deserves Better, Vanya Hargreeves Needs A Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25432867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackH777/pseuds/JackH777
Summary: Klaus has many regrets in his life. Too many to count really.Doing drugs and becoming addicted to those drugs. Being cruel to his softer siblings. Harsh words to Ben or Vanya that he could never really take back.Both have already forgiven him. They always did. He knows that, but it doesn’t really take the regret of it away, then or now.There were other things too. Lying to, stealing from, and just generally hurting his siblings. Never trying to make anything of himself or learning to control his powers. Those were just the tip of the iceberg that was the regret living inside of him.But one thing he never thought to regret, that he honestly never thought much about in general was ignoring the ghost of a girl.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Vanya Hargreeves/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 159
Collections: The umbrella academy





	Too Many Regrets To Count

**Author's Note:**

> Rated Teen And Up for slightly more mature themes including mentioning of death at a young age. Nothing too explicit or graphic.

Klaus has many regrets in his life. Too many to count really.

Doing drugs and becoming addicted to those drugs. Being cruel to his softer siblings. Harsh words to Ben or Vanya that he could never really take back. 

Both have already forgiven him. They always did. He knows that, but it doesn’t really take the regret of it away, then or now. 

There were other things too. Lying to, stealing from, and just generally hurting his siblings. Never trying to make anything of himself or learning to control his powers. Those were just the tip of the iceberg that was the regret living inside of him. 

But one thing he never thought to regret, that he honestly never thought much about in general was ignoring the ghost of a girl.

This girl in particular was nothing special. When she first showed up she was around their age, so he figured her spirit was seeking him out like so many others had before. This one, however, didn’t speak to him. 

She didn’t make demands like the others. In fact, her attention had never been on him at all.

When he was younger Klaus never noticed it. Or at the very least, he pretended not to notice it. The way the girl's eyes lingered on one of his siblings in particular. 

He told Reginald about her once. That had been a mistake and something that he grew to regret solely because it brought more of his father's attention to him.

Their father forced him to try communicating with the girl. Since she was around so often, the man assumed she was of some kind of importance to Klaus. He was tasked with finding out everything he could about her. 

She didn’t age, so he could assume she was around thirteen when she died. He half expected five to pop up next to her after he disappeared, but his brother never did. 

Klaus kept notes about her appearance and handed them over to his father when asked. 

No other ghosts appeared as clear to him or as often as this girl, so he believed his father when he said she was in some way important. He just never imagined exactly how important. 

The first time he overdosed when he was sixteen, two days after Ben’s death, she was standing beside him when he awoke looking a little concerned, but then she disappeared again and was replaced with Ben who was his new and more constant companion.

From then on he only saw the girl on occasions where all of his siblings got together. 

Just before he moved out, or left really, because he didn’t have anywhere to move into his father handed over a file. In it was a picture of the girl he had been seeing for the past five years. 

“Bethany Anderson” He read the name allowed. 

Apparently, she had been killed on one of their mission. She had been taken hostage at a bank and when they had tried making their grand entrance one of the gunmen got nervous. 

He had shot before they even had a chance of getting to the hostages. 

This girl had jumped forward attempting to protect others, but in turn, took the bullet straight to the chest. She died before they could even get to her. Before they ever tried getting to her.

None of them had felt too bad about it, but their father had made a small speech about how they would never be able to save everyone and they needed to learn to live with their failures. Klaus guessed her haunting him for years had been him living with his. 

The more he read into her the worse he felt. She had lived on their street. Gone to the public school just up the way. Had they been normal children there was a very real chance that they would have been friends with her. 

It took him longer than he cared to admit for him to put the pattern together. To realize that she was only ever actually around when Vanya, little number Seven was around. 

“Do you think she latched onto her because the were the same age when she died?” Klaus asked Ben one night when he finally got high enough to have the courage to ask.

Ben shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe she just hug around all of us long enough to decide she liked Vanya best. I asked her about it, but she never wants to talk with me.”

“I could try to help her move on?” Klaus suggested. It was the first time he had ever considered trying to help a ghost other than his brother since he became an adult. 

Ben gave another half-hearted shrug. “I don’t think she likes us all that much. You could always ask next time we see her.”

Except he was drunk off his ass the next time he saw her, and he didn’t even think about asking. He was just enjoying the warmth of Vanya’s apartment which she had kindly let him into even knowing that he would probably steel some of her stuff before he left the next morning. 

Bethany just rolled her eyes at him before disappearing from his view. 

After that, it didn’t seem like he would get another chance to see her because Vanya had published her stupid book, and Klaus wasn’t inclined to see her again any time soon. 

In fact, he managed to go years before seeing either of them again. The reunion came on the second happiest day of his life. The day of his father’s funeral.

Little number Seven was there looking just as tiny as he remembered her and standing in the background was Bethany. 

Ben went over to talk with her, but she didn’t respond to him like normal. 

Five returned and it was a whirlin of a couple of days. 

Klaus got kidnapped, sent to the past, fell in love, fought in a war, got sober, returned to the present, and much more in what felt like only a few hours. He was exhausted, so he did not have time for Bethany who was finally willing to speak with him.

“Klaus, you need to go help, Vanya.” The teen ordered angrily. 

“Van-Van is a big girl; she can handle herself.” He replied knowing they had more important things to deal with at the time.

Bethany tried over and over again, but he kept ignoring her in favor of trying to save the rest of the world for assured destruction. 

He could only regret that when they found out Vanya was actually in trouble. He regretted it, even more, when they found out that innocent little Vanya had almost killed Allison. It seemed like nothing was making sense to him anymore. 

Seeing his sister locked in that cage by Luthor, their supposed leader, brought back every fear he had from childhood. She looked so terrified behind that glass.

Bethany also seemed enraged by the action.

“Klaus, you need to get her out of there. She doesn’t deserve to be stuck in there, Klaus. You know she would never purposefully hurt anyone. You know that!” The young ghost argued, but she was overruled by his fear over what would happen to him if he chose to stand up to Luthor now.

Instead, he stayed silent adding another regret to his list.

Hours later standing outside the rubble of his ruined childhood home Klaus felt all of the regrets of his life spilling out of him. He cried and sobbed into his brother. Into Ben who was actually holding him in his arms. 

“We can save her Klaus. We can save Vanya together.” Ben promised before stepping away from his brother. “I’ll find Bethany. She’s never too far away from Vanya.”

It took a surprisingly short amount of time for his super siblings to mobilize, even with crazy people chasing after and trying to kill them. They were heading to Vanya’s concert and sitting in the car it was not lost on Klaus that this entire situation should be different. 

Instead of sitting in the car in silence, they should be laughing. Instead of being in rubble stained clothes, they should be dressed to the nines. They should be going to this damn show to support their little number Seven. Not going to this theater to…

Klaus couldn’t finish the thought. He might have been timid around his brothers before, but he would not allow them to hurt her again. 

Allison argued that she should talk with Vanya first and Klaus was inclined to agree. 

The others didn’t feel that way.

It didn’t come as a shock that Vanya was reacting poorly to them. Why should she be happy to see the siblings who have treated her poorly all her life?

Klaus tried to reason with her a little, but it didn’t seem to help. Nothing was seeming to help, not even Ben’s presence, which he was sure would do the trick. At the very least his brother was saving their asses from those guys with the guns. 

Then a thought crossed his mind. 

He wasn’t sure where the thought came from, but he guessed it was something to do with Bethany’s ghost sitting in the front row of the concert hall just observing everything with a disappointed frown. 

“Bethany!” Klaus yelled catching a shocking number of people’s attention. 

The ghost turned to look at him, as did a surprisingly calmer Vanya and a worried Ben. 

It took a lot of focus for him to shift the physical energy from Ben to Bethany, but he managed it. Several of his siblings even gasped seeing the girl sitting there. 

Vanya even stopped playing at the sight. 

“Can you all see me?” Bethany questioned softly.

“Umm, yes.” Five responded once it was clear the fighting was also on pause. 

Bethany stared down at herself for a moment before slowly rising to her feet. Then, with a little more speed she rushed over to the side steps of the stage and climbed them quickly. She rushed over so that she was standing in front of Vanya. Only a few inches away.

“Can you see me, Van?” She questioned with a voice that was full of hope. 

As Vanya sucked in a breath some of the strange coloring started to clear from her eyes. “Beth?”

The way the name fell from his sister's lips was the first thing that clued him in on the fact that this situation was not as simple as he originally thought. He considered that he probably should have expected that given how their lives went so far. 

“Beth?” Vanya questioned again, this time sounding even more broken.

The two females stared at one another for a long moment before the dead one spoke again.

“What are you doing here Van? This isn’t you.” She said allowing her eyes to roam over the currently all-white suit. 

Vanya shuttered a little. “I…I don’t know Beth. It just…it hurts so bad.”

Bethany nodded her head in understanding. “I know it hurts Van, but we talked about this. You remember that don’t you?”

Vanya gave such a small nod that it could hardly be seen, but it was there. “Life hurts.”

The thirteen-year-old sighed deeply. “Yeah, it does. That’s how you know that it’s life. Tell me what your feeling V. Tell me how I can make it hurt a little less. Let me help you make it feel better.”

There was something deeply intimate about the way they were talking. It took him a long moment to realize that they had talked before, but not like this. 

No. It seemed there was a reason Bethany had always been a ghost for Vanya. 

They knew each other. 

“I’m just so angry.” Vanya sobbed out. “So angry at them.”

She didn’t need to elaborate for anyone to understand who ‘them’ was.

“They let him treat us that way. They walked over me our entire lives. Constantly putting me down and…and. Every little mistake I made was always so much worse because I wasn’t special. Not like them. Then when it turned out that I was the whole time they put me in that...that box. They…they let you die. The one good thing in my life and they just let you die and…It hurt so much when you were gone, and I was all alone again.”

Her siblings could only watch as Vanya’s sobs continued to grow. Slowly Bethany reached out taking the bow and instrument out of Vanya’s hands. The woman let them go with no complaint other than another cry of pain.

“Shh. They might be assholes V, but they didn’t know. They didn’t know what you lost that day.” Bethany assured moving forward to wrap her arms around the sobbing woman. 

Vanya had always been short, but even at thirteen, this other girl was a little taller than her. “I…I kept waiting for it to get easier, but it never did. It never got easier to live without you.”

Klaus didn’t realize he was crying until now. Turning a little he noticed that Ben had tears in his eyes also.

“It’s me…oh god, it's me! I’m gonna cause the apocalypse.” Vanya sobbed out falling more into the girl's arms. “It hurts Beth. It hurts so much. Please…please make it stop.”

The girl had a few tears in her own eyes. “I can. I can make it stop if that’s what you want Vanya, but you need to be sure.”

“I’m sure.” Vanya almost screamed. “Please I’m sure. I can’t…Please don’t make me do this without you anymore.”

“Shh. You don’t have to V. I just…I need you to be absolutely sure?” Beth questioned again. This time she pulled her body back a little so that she could actually get a look into Vanya’s eyes. 

“I am. I’m sure. Please make it stop hurting.” Vanya begged. 

Klaus didn’t understand it. Not until Ben was rushing past him trying to get to them. It didn’t click until the moment it did, but then it was too late.

The two of them shared a sad smile with one another before their lips crashed together like it was something they did all the time. 

It took him another embarrassing moment to realize that they probably had before Bethany died. This wasn’t just some girl who they had failed to save. Nor was it a friend of their sisters. No, Bethany Anderson was more than that. She was so important that she spent over a decade of her afterlife following Vanya around.

Someone yelled when Bethany disappeared, and Vanya’s body dropped bonelessly to the ground. 

Most of his siblings were moving towards their sister, but Klaus was too focused on the figures now standing stage left. Bethany was looking a little sad, but overall normal.

Vanya was the shocking one. Seeing the body of his thirty-year-old sister lying motionless on stage and the ghostly thirteen-year-old version of her standing just a few feet away holding hands with her childhood love was almost too much for the man who thought he had seen it all. 

Behind the pair was a strange door with a golden light pouring out from the seams. 

Vanya looked at it curiously. 

“We don’t have to go through it.” Bethany assured. “We can stay here and watch over them if that’s what you want.”

Young Vanya looked towards her brothers and sister who were now trying to wake her. “What happens if we leave?”

Beth grimaced. “If we go through the door I don’t think we can ever come back.”

“Do you know what’s on the other side?” Little number Seven questioned. 

Bethany shook her head. “I never really thought about it until now.”

“Why not?” Vanya asked. Klaus was grateful that she did because he didn’t think he could find the voice right now.

“I was waiting on you silly. I had to stay here and make sure you were okay.”

Vanya’s ghost blushed at that comment before glancing towards her siblings again. “They can make sure each other are okay.”

“Are you sure?” Beth questioned sending a concerned glance towards Klaus.

Vanya either didn’t notice the look, or she didn’t care. 

“I’m sure.” 

The two shared another short kiss before pushing open the door together. Klaus was so blinded by the light that he couldn’t make anything out other than the two silhouettes disappearing into it holding on another’s hands.

Then as if it were never there, the door disappeared.

“Klaus!” Diego sobbed from where their sister's dead body lay. It seemed he might have been calling him for a while. “Klaus, can you do something?”

“Please Klaus.” Five begged holding onto Vanya’s lifeless hand tightly. 

He let the tears continue to roll gently down his face as he answered. “I cant. They're gone.”

“Gone? Gone where?” Luthor demanded looking strangely helpless to be number One.

Klaus sighed again looking towards Ben. Towards his brother who was always there. “Somewhere better I hope. Somewhere that they can be happy together.”

Allison sobbed at his response and Luthor pulled her closer. He watched as his remaining siblings broke down around him, but there was something heavy about all of it. Maybe because for the first time in his life he had to face his regret head-on.

Because yeah, they prevented the apocalypse, but Klaus knew it was going to be one of the biggest regrets of his life.


End file.
